Mother hopes others will opt out of standardized testing
March 20, 2011 3:46 p.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Pennsylvania woman says tests are inaccurate, used to punish schools
- College education professor agrees they are waste of time
- Proponent calls tests "a parent's ally," says they improve schools
- No national statistics exist on opting out
State College, Pa. (CNN) -- A Pennsylvania mother has decided she does not want her two children to take the two-week-long standardized tests given by her state as part of the federal No Child Left Behind law. And she hopes other parents will do the same.
Michele Gray's sons Ted Rosenblum, 11, and John Michael Rosenblum, 9, did independent study the week of March 14 while their classmates were filling in hundreds of bubbles in classrooms with doors marked, "Quiet. Testing in Progress."
Gray says the only legal exemption that would allow her kids to sit out the tests was a religious objection. So that's what she did.
But Gray says her concerns go well beyond religion. "The more I look at standardized tests, the more I realize that we have, as